Charles Morgan (businessman)

Charles Morgan (21 April 1795-8 May 1878) was an American railroad and shipping magnate.

Biography
Charles Morgan was born in Clinton, Connecticut in 1795, and he started working in New York City at the age of 14. He managed both wholesale and retail businesses before specializing in marine shipping, and he invested in sailing vessels as early as 1819. During the 1830s, he began to invest in steamships travelling to Kingston, Jamaica and Charleston, South Carolina from New York, and he expanded his shipping business in the Gulf of Mexico during the 1840s and 1850s. During the Gold Rush, he offered transit to California through Panama, making him rivals with Cornelius Vanderbilt. Morgan and his business partner C.K. Garrison convinced President of Nicaragua William Walker to revoke Vanderbilt's contract in favor of granting it to them instead, leading to the powerful Vanderbilt sending agents to the Costa Rican government to help them seize Walker's steamships. Morgan came to profit from the Louisiana railroad during the 1850s, but he lost some of his investments during the American Civil War due to seizures from the North and South. He responded by running blockade runners for the Confederacy, while his Morgan Iron Works built engines for 13 US Navy ships. During Reconstruction, he sold his interest in the iron works, and he resumed his Gulf packet service between New Orleans and Texas and between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama. He acquired his first railroad in 1869, and he expanded his businesses during the 1870s. He died in New York in 1878 at the age of 83.